Review search
The Van Apfel Girls are Gone (Felicity McLean, Fourth Estate)
Released March 2019
Felicity McLean’s debut novel The Van Apfel Girls are Gone opens with the arrival of a ghost, ‘summoned by the death rattle of Cornflakes in their box’. It is an... Read more
Ozzie Goes to School (Jocelyn Crabb, illus by Danny Snell, Working Title)
Released February 2019
Ozzie Goes to School is a gentle picture book about one of life’s great milestones. Ozzie loves living with his dad in their shipping container on the beach. Safe in... Read more
Dippy’s Big Day Out (Jackie French, illus by Bruce Whatley & Ben Smith Whatley, HarperCollins)
Released January 2019
The creators of the much-loved picture book Diary of a Wombat, are back with a new book that is set centuries back in time. Dippy, short for Diprotodon, is the... Read more
Highway Bodies (Alison Evans, Echo)
Released February 2019
Alison Evans follows up their award-winning debut Ida with a refreshingly Australian zombie apocalypse story suitable for older teens. Sprawling across both rural and urban Victoria, Highway Bodies thrusts readers... Read more
Into the Fire (Sonia Orchard, Affirm Press)
Released February 2019
Sonia Orchard’s second work of literary fiction, Into the Fire, is a distinctly Australian novel. Descriptions of smoky blue-green gums that paint a vivid picture of rural Victoria are balanced... Read more
Driving into the Sun (Marcella Polain, Fremantle Press)
Released February 2019
At the centre of Marcella Polain’s second novel is 11-year-old Orla, whose flawed-yet-beloved father, a man with his own thwarted hopes and dreams, is a figure with whom she is... Read more
Fridays with My Folks (Amal Awad, Vintage)
Released February 2019
In her fifth nonfiction book, journalist Amal Awad investigates ageing in Australia from her perspective as an adult daughter grappling with a parent’s decline. Woven into her analysis is the... Read more
Rapture’s Roadway (Virginia Jealous, Peter Bishop)
Released February 2019
Author Virginia Jealous is a travel writer for Lonely Planet and a published poet in her own right, but in Rapture's Roadway, she pursues her late father’s lifelong obsession with... Read more
Accidental Feminists (Jane Caro, MUP)
Released February 2019
Jane Caro grew up in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s—the heyday of second-wave feminism. In her latest work of nonfiction, she paints a picture of the everyday women and... Read more
Invented Lives (Andrea Goldsmith, Scribe)
Released February 2019
On the streets of St Petersburg in 1985, Galina bumps into Andrew, an irrevocably shy Australian artist. Soon, she is on a plane to Melbourne in search of freedom. As... Read more
Stella the Unstoppable: The Talent Show Fiasco (Richard Newsome, Affirm)
Released February 2019
Richard Newsome is known for action-packed adventure tales like his Text Prize-winning ‘Billionaire’ series, but his newest series, ‘Stella the Unstoppable’, is a little bit of a departure. Aimed at... Read more
Fish Kid and the Lizard Ninja (Kylie Howarth, Walker Books)
Released February 2019
Bodhi is a boy who travels the world with his parents (a scientist and a photographer) as they study marine environments, in this case the Galapagos Islands. He would much... Read more
Gorski’s Bitemare (Robert Favretto, illus by Danny Willis, Ford St)
Released February 2019
Gorski Dragonovski lives with his mum and dad and his sister Drusella. Their home is a castle outside of town and they sleep all day, in coffins. Gorski and his... Read more
Tilly Maguire and the Royal Wedding Mess (Emma Grey, HarperCollins)
Released January 2019
Author Emma Grey declares this gloriously soapy book an ‘unapologetic fairytale’. Grey has fun with classic fairytale elements as well as modern pop culture: indeed, the book features run-ins with... Read more
Melody Trumpet (Gabrielle Tozer, HarperCollins)
Released January 2019
Melody’s parents are world-famous musicians (and narcissistic bores) who expect their only daughter to have inherited their incredible talent, but poor Melody can’t play any instruments and sounds like a... Read more
The Day We Built the Bridge (Samantha Tidy, illus by Fiona Burrows, MidnightSun)
Released February 2019
Samantha Tidy and Fiona Burrows take the creation of a national icon, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and strip it back to a streamlined, succinct story of a need, an idea... Read more
Fusion (Kate Richards, Hamish Hamilton)
Released February 2019
Kate Richards burst onto the literary scene in 2013 with her award-winning Madness: A Memoir, which described her decade of living with psychosis. She returns now with her first novel,... Read more
A Season on Earth (Gerald Murnane, Text)
Released February 2019
In 1976 William Heinemann published Gerald Murnane’s second novel, A Lifetime on Clouds. In the book’s originally published two parts, the protagonist Adrian Sherd, a student at a Catholic high... Read more
Star-crossed (Minnie Darke, Michael Joseph)
Released March 2019
Star-crossed is a charming rom-com centred on an aspiring journalist whose attempts to influence fate lead to unintended—and at times hilarious—consequences. When Justine Carmichael finally gets a promotion at the... Read more
Yahoo Creek (Tohby Riddle, A&U)
Released March 2019
In this imaginative work, Tohby Riddle delves into the mystery of the yahoo (or the yowie, as it is commonly known today). Reported sightings of these large, hairy beasts were... Read more
